Ryan, at age 41, is three months younger than Brett Favre. It’s hard to think of someone else who rose to prominence within the Republican party at such a young age. Perhaps the closest match would be Richard Nixon, who spent six years in the House and Senate before being added to Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential ticket in 1952, at the age of 39…

It’s not merely Ryan’s age that would be an anomaly. He would be running as a member of the House of Representatives, which has traditionally been a graveyard for presidential candidates. In America’s history, only Henry Clay (1824), James A. Garfield (1880), and John Anderson (1980) ran for president in the general election as sitting House members. And, as everyone knows, before 2008, no member of Congress, not even a senator, had been elected since John Kennedy in 1960. Of course, we live in strange times — our current president broke the 48-year streak of senators being snubbed by the voters. (And I think I read something on the Internet about him also being African-American.)